Poco Mountain Girl

Here is the little horse I knitted up for Zia. The basic body pattern is one I found online, but I devised my own knitted saddle, bridle, hooves and facial features, since I wasn’t sold on the felt ones. I gave it a bit of a colorful pinata theme, which I think is fitting for a birthday horse.

It was pretty funny making this – once it started to take shape and I needed to keep it hidden, I worked almost entirely inside a plastic bag – a Target bag, at that. But as you can see, he’s out of the bag and happily soaking up the outdoors.

Of course, now he’s been banished to another bag until tomorrow morning, when the Blue Horse Girl turns 4.

I also whipped up another new skirt yesterday and managed to somehow keep it hidden even though she was in the same room. It works to deftly swipe it behind your back and talk about some random thing that’s very interesting to a 4-year old, for future reference.

She didn’t pick out this fabric, but she’s almost as crazy about mermaids as blue horses, so I feel sure it will be a winner. Especially since it features a redhead like herself.

But it can never come out quite perfect. In my Speedy Gonzales style of “whipping up”, I sewed one side on upside down. I instantly designated it to be the skirt back. But then, if she looked down at it while wearing it, it would be right side up to her, right?

Last but not least, the cake is finished. I found the requested horse head pan, sort of learned to navigate some Wilton tips, and spent way more than I should have to get all natural food coloring. She asked for blue frosting, of course. I thought I could make a suitable blue without buying food coloring, but I just wasn’t happy with the blue from blueberries or red cabbage, so I ended up getting India Tree colors.

Quite honestly, the blue food coloring I used didn’t impress me much either. The other India Tree colors worked fine, but the blue is more of a periwinkle (I’m biting my tongue to keep from saying grayish blue). At this point, though, I think it will have to do. Next year, I might not ask for specifics. I’ll whip up a delicious pink-or-something color and call it good.

The one thing I did draw the line on was what she asked me to write on the cake: “Zia always scratches her brother Caleb but he doesn’t mind at all and he’s fine”. I shortened it to the first word of the sentence. Savvy, eh?

I am a little concerned about one thing…if I’ve gone so gung-ho on her 4th birthday preparations (where there aren’t even guests besides her beloved brother) what will I be like for her wedding?

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 9th, 2011 at 7:36 am and is filed under Celebrating, knitting, Making Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.